The call for protectionism is loud in America. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images
It’s usually the smaller items that convey the biggest news. A few years ago Le Monde reported a study that found seven out of ten French people to be living in the region of France in which they were born. That finding surprised many people, including the reporter involved. After all, we think we live in a transitory world, yet a huge number of people still spend their entire lives close to home. Around 60% of British people live no more than 30 miles from where they resided as fourteen-year-olds.
No matter which university you visit, you’ll always find a research group focusing on mobility in some form or other, usually migration. It’s very rare, however, to find a team of researchers looking at immobility, even though only 3% of the world’s population is made up of immigrants. In Western Europe and the United States, those born in another country account for around 15% of the population, on average, and although it would be wrong to dismiss the changes that migration brings, clearly most people in any given country are not migrants.
This tendency to ignore the majority represents a blind spot that might almost be called a prejudice: mobility is good, immobility bad. It applies at the individual level as well as being an injunction aimed at large groups. The crossing of borders brings progress, since mixing keeps cultures alive. Who would deny that the urge to create and the exploration of boundaries go hand in hand?
And yet the number of international marriages remains limited. Few people leave their homeland to go and work in a foreign country. Few Europeans have sufficient command of another language to use it to discuss profound differences of opinion. More importantly, a sense of lifelong responsibility towards others does not travel well across borders. Despite all the stories about the virtual world we inhabit, proximity continues to matter.
Indeed, we rarely stop to think about it, but in everyday speech we use countless images that involve space: the political landscape, left and right, the opening up of a horizon, the path to the future, the centre ground. Terms like marketplace, battlefield, fault line and domain are more than merely specifications of place, and we sometimes describe grief as a journey, or troubled periods in our personal lives as an uphill struggle.
Post-1989 claims about the “end of history” — the idea that liberal democracy would inevitably win more and more terrain – were accompanied by the notion of the “end of geography”, a sense that distances would evaporate in the global village. Neither proved well-founded; democracy no longer seems inevitably universal, and we all live in worlds that are in many respects still confined.
Today it is no coincidence that the liberal paradigm is under pressure in the countries that most clearly embody it as a worldview: the United States and Britain. The British people’s decision to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump in that same year are often, and rightly, mentioned in the same breath. It’s precisely in countries that see themselves as the advance guard of globalisation that the call for protectionism is loudest, or at any rate louder than in continental Europe, which has always wanted to practise a more moderate form of liberalism.
Populist parties have exposed social and cultural fault lines that we need to take seriously. Such movements are usually placed under the heading of “populism”, but “protectionism” would be a rather more accurate label. This causes considerable confusion, because protectionist parties are difficult to classify as either Left or Right. After all, the Rassemblement National and the FPÖ present themselves as defenders of the welfare state and oppose, for example, raising the pension age. A new fault line has therefore emerged on the political spectrum: internationalism versus protectionism.
Not long after the European Parliamentary elections in 2014, I heard a former European commissioner at an international conference in Copenhagen say, “While 30% make the noise, 70% continue to make the laws.” In response I asked: how can we be so sure that the 30% will remain a minority? And would it not be a good idea to take those voters seriously? Have we not learnt that democracy must ensure minorities are represented?
Doing away with internal borders without putting in place effective controls at the external border is one reason why the EU has struggled to contain populism. In a speech, the president of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy, acknowledged this deficit: “Europe, the friend of freedom and space is seen as a threat to protection and place. We need to get the balance right. It is essential for the Union to be also on the protecting side.”
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has only sharpened the tension between the removal of borders and this need for protection. Indeed, although huge progress has been made since the Second World War in conquering infectious disease, globalisation has also created the preconditions for a rapidly spreading pandemic.
In Epidemics and Society, medical historian Frank Snowden described the long history of diseases such as bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, polio and tuberculosis. All these forms of pestilence stretch back centuries, but he regards the third plague pandemic, which began in 1894 in Hong Kong, as the first truly global spread of infection. Within six years the disease reached five continents, mainly through major port cities.
After decades of intense globalisation and urbanisation, our intrinsic vulnerability to infection has increased, despite better diagnosis and vaccines. “Epidemic diseases are an ineluctable part of the human condition,” Snowden writes: “and modernity, with its vast population, teeming cities, and rapid means of transport between them, guarantees that the infectious diseases that afflict one country have the potential to affect all.”
As a traditional saying from the shipping industry goes, one leak is enough to capsize an ocean steamer if no bulkheads have been built in the hold. The unlimited mobility characteristic of our era has many unintended consequences: a local infection in China can translate into a worldwide outbreak in just a few months, killing millions and throwing many more out of work. These days we should be making a thorough study of chaos theory, which tells us that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Texas. Sure enough, one damned bat from Wuhan brought the whole world to a standstill.
Countries have become more and more economically interlinked. It is of course a great advantage not to have to produce everything yourself, but the outbreak of coronavirus also shows the drawbacks of such dependency. A reduction in supplies from India and China can lead to a shortage of pharmaceuticals: 80% of the drugs sold worldwide come from those two countries. Would we not do better to produce essential medicines ourselves? One immediate lesson from the coronavirus pandemic is that we need to take a critical look at global dependencies.
It is not easy to navigate between a poorly understood cosmopolitanism and a new protectionism. Mobility can increase only if there are enough people who feel a bond with a place. In fluid circumstances everything dissolves — why would this not apply to freedom? The greatest challenge is to ensure that the mobility characteristic of our time can be reconciled with citizens’ rights.
In this borderless world, markets and morality reinforce each other, since borders and regulations are obstacles to both commerce and human rights. Hence businesspeople and idealists speak the same borderless language, of tearing down walls but also of tearing up the social contract, too, since it also takes shape within borders.
Italian novelist and cultural critic Alessandro Baricco nicely summed up this worldview when he said that, “Everything that has need of the steadfastness of immobility ultimately gets a twentieth-century stench and later a vaguely ominous sound as well.” Baricco’s conclusion was to “Boycott borders, tear down all walls, set up one open space in which everything must circulate. Demonize immobility.”
We often hear people expressing concern about the borders of freedom. Here I want to lay the emphasis on the freedom of the border. We need to learn to deal with the tension between openness and protection, a tension that is part and parcel of any lively democracy. An open society cannot exist if there is no middle ground.
For the average citizen, globalisation has a wide range of consequences: alongside interaction and prosperity, we see alienation and inequality. Pleas for open borders and pleas for closed borders are increasingly at odds, which does not bode well. If these fault lines become even more firmly fixed within our societies, and people feel forced to choose between two extremes, then it’s clear where most people will end up: on the side not of cosmopolitanism but of nationalism.
Freedom of the Border is published by Polity
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SubscribeI saw Mr Scheffer, or someone very much like him, deliver a talk along these lines at de Balie in Amsterdam a few years ago. It was very refreshing as i expected the speaker to deliver the normal eulogy in favour of open borders etc.
The fact that most people never really move away from their place of birth first struck me a school reunion in the mid 1990s. At the time I was somewhat contemptuous of all those who had stayed, given that I had left for London aged 18 and was running around between half the world’s major cities at the time. But as I get older, and as I have started to see and understand the impacts of neo-liberal globalism, I have far more sympathy for those who stay in one place.
Agree with you, having followed a very similar path in my life.
Like Andrea Bertolini, I agree with you, and for the same reasons.
Yes. Like you I’ve moved around but I’ve ended up away from where I started and I regret it.
I join the chorus of agreement-I left home at 17 and have traveled to, lived, in many places, but now am back to the small farm where my forebears cleared the land and settled in 1887, caring for my mother. “Far from the madding crowd”.
Those who promote open borders ideology are always hypocrites and therefore need not be taken seriously, since their objection is merely to the border itself. If they really believed in a completely open society they would champion “illegal immigration” in that their ideology would be in favour of people being completely undocumented, entirely free to live below the radar, to make no use whatsoever of state services, to live as anarchists, in effect. But that is not what these hypocrites believe or want.
The open borders brigade hold simultaneously a desire for extreme levels of state involvement in people’s lives. The immigrants themselves also hold this ideology. Look at the recent fire in Kent, these are not people who wish to make their own way and live freely, they wish the tax payer to house them at great expense in accommodation which is superior to that used to house the army. Neither group wishes to be undocumented, they wish to be absolutely known to every organ of the state and for the state to provide them with every benefit and every interference it can. In short natives who promote open borders in their own countries are inverted colonialists, their belief has nothing to do with freedom of the individual to settle anywhere, and everything to do with belief in the superiority of the statism and bureaucracy in their own country over all others.
Globalism vs localism is a continual theme through political history. Empires and unions emerge, only to slowly disintegrate back into independent nations (for example 17 EU states have been through an independence process). The main reason being one of governance – how do local people hold a pan-national state to account, or assert their local needs based on their specific circumstances of geography, language and culture, over centralized control and blandified common interests?
Totally agree. However it is important to keep two things in mind: 1) all of life is a balance between forces where every action has a reaction and; 2) life is an endless journey where the direction of travel is constantly but slowly changing, there is no nirvana to be reached. Consequently, repetitive cycles are to be expected as generational change deletes memory of what happened last time.
I’m not sure any level of reality can dissuade the open borders people. What is obvious, or should be, is that you cannot have open borders AND a welfare state. It doesn’t work. Ever. This, of course, will not sway the open borders adherent.
Don’t understand your argument. Our young people are sitting at home with useless degrees spending 95% of their time looking at screens. They may be on part-time jobs but probably on benefits (social security payments). So immigrants come in, do the jobs on low wages and, in the future by dint of their ability to work, will get more money and pay the taxes for the welfare state. Who will pay the taxes in the future without the immigrants and who will do the work?
Immigrants pay taxes; I don;t think so. There;s a lot in ‘cash’ type work; the grey economy, after a few years on low pay, suddenly they can buy a house?
When we were in the EU, they were claiming Gordon Browns in work benefits, and sending them back home i.e. out of our economy. Deranged economics.
OK, fine. So who pays the taxes?
No countries are worried about economic migration.
They are very angry because govenrments have forced uneconomic migration on them. Migrants who become cheap labour for the elites, paid for by the masses, driving down wages for the masses.
Then you have the criminal element.
Lastly because the low paid end up not integrating, you get the cultural issues.
How often do you hear, but they have come for a better life? How often do you hear, they have come here because they want to be British as an example? Notice the disparity
“No countries are worried about economic migration”
Exactly.
…….but migrants do the jobs the masses won’t do!
Some do, that’s true. The vast majority, however, at least here in Germany, and especially in Berlin (where I live), end up on social welfare, long-term.
Yet we are told welfare is not generous enough
I say this as the granddaughter of someone who had a “portfolio” career after the war – no husband; no welfare state; two children; made money by picking peas, collecting debts, taking in laundry…
Can’t understand why nobody can see what you are saying. Where I live almost every physical or unpleasant job is done by immigrants – the rubbish tip, bin men, van drivers, road workers,etc. Our own people, the masses are sitting in rooms in front of a screen with the ambition of being You Tubers.
I shudder to think how we would cope now without immigrants.
Can’t understand why you can’t see what the other side are saying. If there were no immigrants, the work would HAVE to be done by natives; in a free market, wages for those tasks would rise until people chose to do it, if only for the money. We get the job done cheaply, at the expense of having to support the workless , and consequently unemployable with welfare.
I agree that is what the other side are say and I know they are saying it. But it is wishful thinking. When a group of our youngsters went to pick cabbages in Cornwall they had to keep stopping to read messages from friends. Result, the best achievement of the day was half a row of cabbages. The norm for imported workers was 11 rows per day – 20 times faster. If you believe that double the wages would get to 20 times faster you must be delusional.
What would happen would be that the record would increase from half a row per day to about 2 rows. So you would have to employ 10 times as many people. This is OK if the consumer is willing to pay 40 times more. No.
Bravo, I find the arguments developed in the essay easy to agree with. I would only like to underline the basic incompatibility between globalization and democracy: the latter works best in small geographical spaces (at the level of your district, city, province) because all involved (or most of them) issue from a common culture and the level of mutual understanding is high, the issues at hand are local and everyone has an interest in, and direct experience of, them. So, in my opinion, the larger the geographical/political space in question the less democracy is allowed to work well and efficiently. Any significance distance between voter and center of power is a recipe for disaster.
Yes, that is all true and I have reached the same conclusions. Also, the larger the territory or population to be governed, the bigger the monster or monsters that will seek to govern it.
This article covers a lot of interesting ground, but it avoids one very important area, carbon emissions. The UK, along with many other European countries and restarting in the USA under Biden, have been exporting carbon emission so our leaders can “strut their stuff” at the UN climate change conferences. This simple act has been one of the leading factors in pushing manufacturing into China. This has built China into a superpower and it is using this to stifle democracy and increase it’s influence around the world. At some stage we are going to have to stand up to China and that means recognising the folly of the “net zero carbon emissions” policy. The first step along this road is to recognise that exporting carbon emission is not stopping them and we need to be more realistic about what we consume and were it is manufactured.
A second problem, which is also likely to re-emerge under the Biden/Harris presidency, is the attempt to impose democracy at the point of a gun. This is a liberal/internationalist blind spot and Biden will be looking to flex that mussel again very soon as he is steeped in the illiberal mind set that thinks a population wants democracy more than stability and a gun gives them democracy.
Don’t really believe the carbon emissions thing but we are exporting the pollution of manufacturing to other countries: mining of rare metals for computers/smartphones, the manufacture of cotton goods in Asia.
Carbon is a pollutant. You don’t have to be convinced by it’s role, but in terms of the “man made climate change” hypotheses it is vital and all we are doing is exporting those emissions!
Well, thank God for all those plants-gobbling it up, growing and all…
We need to tell ER and Gretta about that, but they won’t listen
Sorry, don’t believe in ‘man made climate change’.
I believe that the climate is in constant change and that every animal, plant, volcano, earthquake, etc on the plant contributes to that change. I do not buy that current “man made climate change” hypothesis that says the climate is static and only man’s actions affect it. That goes against millions of years of arachnological evidence showing big changes in our climate.
I agree with your concerns about carbon emissions.
The Green lobby seems to have a hold over people to such an extent that reality is ignored.
Today (1/2/20 midday) wind power is producing very little electricity. The actual amount is 2GW out of a usage of 42GW. This is not due to a lack of capacity, but a lack of wind.
Until people accept that wind power is intermittent and that this factor requires us to produce electricity with more reliable sources, the more this disaster will unfold.
The reality of today is that, if we were reliant on wind power we would have a nation wide blackout.
People cannot accept that wind power is impossible without the fossil fuels needed to make the steel, or the mining that is necessary for electric car batteries, so I’m not sure how you get the utopians to grasp any other part of reality.
See my post above.
The US reduced emissions, and at a far greater level than the other Paris Accord signatories. But symbolism over substance requires that Biden’s handlers for us back into that worthless deal while ignoring China’s emissions.
He will also shut down certain industries in the name of reducing carbon emissions but ignore the reality that those products are still needed and will be manufactured somewhere else with the same (or more) carbon emissions plus the additional carbon emissions from transporting those goods. The “net zero” policy is a massive error of judgement and a gift rapped present to China!
These people have conflated ‘science’ with religion, applying the zeal usually associated with the latter to the former. Doesn’t matter if normal people lose their jobs; just read the words of that toadstool John Kerry, dismissing those impacted by the Keystone decision while using his private jet to fly hither and yon. That China benefits should surprise no one given what is known about the Bidens and their connection to that nation.
Shame Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc didn’t let the US electorate know about it it!
Not sure that arguments about emissions will ever fool anybody. But there have been articles in mainstream UK papers about the devastation of the land and the cancers of the people in these Chinese facilities. Photographs do it better than emission data.
It is interesting to me that the organisers of ‘environmental’ protests must use computers and smart phones, young people live for the latest smart phone – a few photographs of the devastation in China would go a long way to helping the US (World) cause.
This is no-win at the moment.
This is an interesting idea at the nation-level. However, might it also pertain at the personal level? Affluent societies tolerate and encourage ‘diversity’. After all, when there’s plenty to go around, what’s the problem? However, when stress is imposed – a shortage of anything – will arbitrary fracture lines manifest? Might society divide itself up according to religious background, skin colour, political beliefs, even colour of hair?
And remember, in the world of emergency planning they have a saying: “We are only ever 3 meals from anarchy.” In other words, after only 3 missed meals, society collapses as the strong/well-armed start to protect the interests of themselves and their families.
“This tendency to ignore the majority represents a blind spot that almost might be called prejudice”
That’s a very perception comment. We are going through a period when we are allowing minorities to dictate the agenda which potentially leads to change the majority do not want.
Yes, precisely, and I think that is what this site should be all about. Unfortunately, it is like a club where everyone agrees and if anyone dares to say anything different they can often be subjected to abuse (mild). Ideally, the site would have Left and Right in a discussion but that seems to be rare.
To me, the problem with the majority is that it is silent. Meanwhile, the minorities are very loud and drown out any discussion. The very defensive nature of your comment (please excuse me for this but it sounds defensive) means that the minorities are winning everywhere.
The only solution – to me- is to get real discussion onto sites like this so that the other side can be persuaded of their error.
I think Unherd was started to give a voice to the silent majority and so it had built into it the propensity to clubbiness. But I agree with you – it’s unfortunate we don’t see more debate on basic principles. We get good discussions on the finer points in which correspondents obviously agree on basic principles. I often find those discussions instructive.
The silent majority can make themselves heard. Brexit and lobbying are examples of that. But the major problem at the moment is that the silent majority are so poorly represented on our University faculties, media and other creators of opinion. I’ve heard Jordan Peterson and the much lamented Sir Roger Scruton say that they were the only conservatives on their faculty. More conservatives in every sphere of education,media, entertainment, politics and religion is what is needed.
I don’t feel defensive. You will have noticed that I implied that the minorities dictating the agenda is a period which will pass and I feel militantly keen that it pass as soon as possible.
Good reply. Thanks
“Such movements are usually placed under the heading of “populism”, but “protectionism” would be a rather more accurate label.”
It’s amazing the difference an extra 120m or so of population makes. Trump’s USA (population 328.2m) was rightly derided for its protectionist trade policies, but the EU (population 447.7m) is thoroughly protectionist to those who are not members, yet is hailed as a bastion of free trade, allowing Brexiteers to be lumped in with Trumpite protectionists.
Perhaps this pandemic will teach the world that it has less to fear from big bombs than it does from things which can only be seen under a microscope. Maybe nations will begin to budget accordingly.
The speed with which COVID-19 spread surely has to do more with leisure – and possibly business – travel than immigration?
Yes indeed. There’s a very good reason Italy was worst hit first – a lot of the Italian clothing factories are in Wuhan (factories that produce the fabrics)
Sadly not, although the leisure travel industry no doubt added to the spread the commercial immigration of Chinese ‘slave’ labour into Italy to work in the now Chinese owned ‘Italian’ fashion industry was the huge factor.
This article is the proof that humanity lives in a world of shifting borders, more than ever. A disturbing fact to many (and I can count myself in) but nevertheless: a fact. The borders are shifting outwards. Brexit and other movements are just temporary convulsions in reaction to the inevitable. The inevitable is called globalisation. Unfortunately this proces untill now is not a democratic one but a question of global governance paid for by the rich and powerful. Bill Gates and China are the symbols of this proces.
As global wealth becomes ever more concentrated and the borders increasingly resemble hostile battle lines, the ruling elite will play out their petty feuds on their planet sized Risk board and watch from their floating space colonies as we plunge into drone warfare.